THE under 18s were presented with their championship trophy on the pitch at half-time of Saturday’s League One game with Brentford.

Bob Bloomer, who is the south west monitor of youth development, handed it over and it was nice that he came along to do that.

It was also nice that the boys got a good reception from a crowd of more than 10,000, because it is a great achievement and they deserved to have a lap of the pitch to take the plaudits from the Swindon fans.

Also on the pitch at half-time, next year’s under 9s signed their first ever contracts with the club. There were nine in total and it is great for them to do it in front of the home supporters because it makes it a little bit special.

Hopefully they have a long time with us and develop well and, who knows, in 10 years time they might be in the first team down here.

Even though summer is fast approaching, things aren’t slowing down here. We played against Cheltenham from under 9 to under 15 level last night and the under 8s go away to take on Arsenal on Saturday.

Then there is Swansea to finish off with this weekend and the Centre of Excellence will run for another week before we close for the summer break.

Although myself and Paul (Bodin, youth team manager) will get a break, the close season will be busy for us. We will be planning for the Milk Cup, our pre-season schedule, and also sitting down and looking at ways to improve what we already do.

A lot of it is impacted by resources, but there are always areas we can tidy up and make better for next season.

Paul and I both played in a charity game at Fairford Town a couple of weeks ago in memory of John Hathaway, who was a coach at the Centre of Excellence and a good friend.

Sadly he died last year, but loads of people turned out for the all-day event which raised money for the British Heart Foundation, and it was a great success.

It was a lot of fun, but the most important thing was the funds and awareness raised for the charity.

Finally, I would just like to wish the first team good luck this weekend in their crunch game at Millwall.

Hopefully they can gain promotion and put the seal on what has been a fantastic season. It will be a big bonus for the whole club and a real reward for all the hard work that Danny Wilson, his coaching team and the players have put in this year.